


Episode 2: Soldier Boy

by humantales



Series: Through the Rift: Torchwood AU Season 4 [2]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-19
Updated: 2010-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-07 09:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humantales/pseuds/humantales
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's past has a tendency to give him trouble, even when he doesn't remember it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Episode 2: Soldier Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Goofy for beta'ing.

Jack looked at the gun he was cleaning, trying to figure out why he was still here. The trip had been supposed to be quick; come in, quiet Gwen and Martha down, meet this alternate Ianto, show Alonso a little of Earth, and leave. He hated Earth and he especially hated England. So why was he still here?

He hadn't realized, until he'd taken a deep breath, how much he'd been missing Cardiff. Spending nearly 150 years in one place had apparently convinced his subconscious it was home; they'd taken one step and Jack had nearly burst into tears with how good it felt.

He'd hardly finished talking with Ianto before one of the nastier aliens had come through the Rift and Jack had joined the team in fighting it before he'd even thought about it. To his surprise, Alonso turned out to have had enough security training to be of use. It had been fun, fighting with a team again; he'd had to remind himself why he'd left. Then he'd had to remind Gwen. Then he'd had to yell at Gwen. She still hadn't accepted that he wasn't staying, wasn't joining Torchwood, and most definitely wasn't going to be Torchwood's Director ever again.

After a week, though, he'd realized that he needed to stay in one place for a bit and really figure out what he was going to do with himself. He had so much time ahead of him, more time than he could get his head around, and what was he going to do with it? Until he'd seen the Doctor, he'd fooled himself that he was just marking time, waiting to be "fixed", but that was never going to happen. He couldn't see himself spending hundreds of thousands of millions of _billions_ of years as one form of soldier or another, but what else could he do?

Before the Doctor had shown up and passed him Alonso's name, he'd been hitting one bar after another. After the first week or so, he hadn't even been getting drunk, but it was easier to be in a bar, surrounded by noise and people, then it was to be alone, in the quiet and solitude.

And there was Alonso. The Doctor had indirectly introduced them and they'd been a surprisingly good fit. Alonso was between jobs and was willing to hang around with Jack while he found something better than being an officer on a luxury liner. They weren't "together," although when Jack had given in and rented a flat, Alonso had moved in with him. They were friends more than anything else; the sex, while good, no great, wasn't anything either of them couldn't give up in a minute if something better came along. He'd found, though, that he liked Earth, enjoyed the people at Torchwood, and was actually pretty good at the job. Jack hated it, but he suspected that Alonso was staying, not just in Cardiff, but with Torchwood.

So, what to do now? He'd reinvented himself at least half a dozen times, could it be time to settle on something? In the meantime, he picked up the mobile to get Gwen's rapid-fire description of the latest problem to come to Cardiff, collected a weapon and ran out to the car. He might as well protect Cardiff while he figured it out.

*

When Jack opened his eyes, he found that he was back at Torchwood HQ, lying on the . . . cold, metal autopsy table. He sat up looking around. As soon as he had, Owen stood up from where he'd been working in one of the cabinets.

"You're back," Owen said.

"Yeah," Jack said, looking around. "Is there a reason I'm lying on a hard, cold autopsy table?"

"Yeah, 'cause otherwise we have to clean blood out of material," Owen answered. "Are you planning on doing it?"

"No," Jack said, feeling disgruntled. It used to be he'd wake up somewhere comfortable. In Ianto's lap if it was possible. "Where's Alonso?"

"Hiding. He hates your dying and coming back and wants nothing to do with it," Owen said as he puttered around the medical area. "Pretty much the way everybody feels about it. They'll probably start coming back in now."

Jack stood up and checked himself over. Only the one wound, but that claw had gone all the way through his body. And he was covered with something slimy. "What is this stuff?"

"Alien spit. Be careful, the analysis is still running."

"Nobody could have wiped it off me?" Jack asked as he picked up the cloth that had been laid out and started wiping the stuff off of himself.

"Hey, I need that!" Owen said, grabbing at the cloth.

"Tough," Jack said. "I need a shower and a change of clothes."

"Have fun," Owen said, indicating the door.

Gwen walked down into the medical area. "Oh, you're up."

"Yeah, and I'm going home. I need a shower and clean clothes." Jack glared. "Is Alfonso ready to go?"

"We still have paperwork and debriefing. We'll be wrapped up in-"

"Fine. Tell him he'll have to get a ride from somebody. I want to get this stuff off me." Jack threw the cloth down and headed towards the door.

"What's wrong with you?" Gwen asked, sounding annoyed.

"Nothing!" Jack said.

No one said anything to him as he left.

*

He opened his eyes to natural sunlight, the first natural sunlight he'd seen since he'd left home. The room didn't look like anything else he'd seen on the ship. The walls, floor and ceiling weren't made of metal or, if they were, that had been disguised really well. The room was large and a little cluttered. Khael could hear another man in the other room; he went looking.

The other room was pure luxury: an individual bathroom. He must have found one of the richest men on the ship. The man stuck his head out of the shower, smiled and said something. Khael didn't know the language, but the implication was clear. With a smile on his face that he didn't feel, he stepped into the bath.

The other man reached out for his face and kissed him. Khael relaxed; most of the men who started out kissing, especially such a good, sweet one as this was, were nice. It took no time for him to get hard; he felt the other man's erection poking him. He pulled back and smiled, a little more real this time, and sank to his knees. The other man looked confused, pulled him back up, and asked him something. Since Khael didn't understand him, he shrugged and tried to figure out what he was supposed to do. When the other man started looking angry, Khael did his best to beat down the panic. Hadn't they talked at all last night? He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders, miming that he didn't understand.

The other man looked stunned and confused. Then he started asking questions in what Khael assumed were different languages. Sighing, Khael said, "I only speak B'shani. Do you speak it?" It wasn't entirely true, he could understand a few words of Common, but he didn't think that was going to be up to the situation.

The other man's jaw dropped. He asked another question but didn't seem surprised when Khael shook his head again. After a minute, he shook his head and handed Khael a blob of something that turned out to be soap. Then he stepped out of the shower and started rubbing a cloth all over himself. Khael started to follow, but the other man pushed him back and handed him the soap again. OK, clearly getting clean took priority, and the cloths were to dry off. Khael had no problem with that.

Once dry, he returned to the bedroom. The other man started to hand him a stack of clothes, but then looked at him a little more carefully, sighed, and led Khael back to the bathroom. It turned out his host wanted Khael to shave and clean his teeth. Before Khael managed that, he saw himself in the mirror and stared in shock. He was _old_, over thirty at least. He was taller than he remembered as well, and had put on a good bit of weight, almost all muscle. His hair was short and . . . He looked a lot like the pictures of his mother's grandfather.

Once he was properly dressed, the other man began to move Khael out of the quarters, which was one of several in a larger building. He was guided to a wheeled vehicle, which moved on the ground on roads, to an area that looked like the spaceport area of the planets he'd seen. The other man guided him to one of the large buildings. Khael wasn't sure what kind of place it was, but he hoped he would get some help.

*

"Gwen! Need your help here!" Alonso called as soon as they got into the new Hub. A quiet, obedient Jack had to be a sign that the world was coming to an end.

"What's wrong? Hi, Jack, what's got Alonso wound up?" Gwen walked out of her office and looked expectantly at the two men. When Jack didn't respond to her, she frowned. "Jack?"

"He doesn't speak English," Alonso said. "It's weird. He didn't recognize me, or the flat, or the car, or anything I say. He doesn't speak Standard either."

Gwen gave him a hard look, then turned to Jack and asked a question. Alonso assumed she was speaking Welsh, but he didn't understand a word of it. Jack just shook his head.

"Has he been this quiet--? Wait, when did this start?"

"This morning," Alonso answered. "I woke up first and was in the shower when he came in. I don't think he has any idea what's going on. It's strange; it's like he didn't know it was him in the mirror, or something." He trailed off. Jack had been startled by his appearance, but he'd accepted it.

"We'll figure it out," Gwen assured him as she called for Owen and Martha. After Alonso explained what he knew, Gwen told them, "We need to know what happened as quickly as possible. We need to know how vulnerable we are."

Alonso led Jack to the medical area and turned him over to Owen and Martha. Jack quietly complied with whatever the two doctors needed from him.

His quiet soon had both doctors edgy. While Owen ran the blood work, Martha kneeled in front of Jack. "Sweetie, can you understand me at all?" When he'd given the expected shrug, Martha put her hand on her own chest. "Martha. Martha Smith-Jones. Doctor Martha Smith-Jones. And you?" she asked, placing her palm on Jack's chest.

His eyes suddenly widened, as he smiled. Covering Martha's hand with his own, he said, "Khael." Then he bit his lip and was quiet a moment. Finally, giving a short nod, he said, "Khael Jaxom B'shane."

Martha looked over at the group who was pretending they were watching everyone. "I'm not sure about the Jaxom, might be a family name or something, but this is Khael from the Boeshane Peninsula."

"How'd you get 'Boeshane Peninsula' from B'shane?" Lois asked as she typed in the new information and set a flag to remind her to ask Jack for clarification later.

"Because I already knew he was from the Boeshane Peninsula," Martha answered. She smiled and patted Jack on the knee as he beamed at her. "He mentioned it to the Doctor and me once."

"He tells a lot of stories," Ianto said, sounding hesitant. "I've never been sure how much is truth and how much . . ."

"Oh, yeah," Martha said, laughing. "But this, well, it was part of a story, which may or may not have been true, but the way he said it . . . " She trailed off. "It sounded real."

"So, Khael?" Gwen asked. Jack looked up at her, clearly responding to the name. "Does he seem like he's acting younger to anyone else?"

"Don't know about younger, but he's being much more cooperative than usual," Owen said, looking up from the slides he was looking at. "Martha, come over here and check these out," he said as he stepped away from the table. "He usually fights even taking pain killers, much less anything more invasive." He looked down at Jack, who looked up at him wide-eyed.

While everyone else was talking, Andy had been pulling up images on his monitor. When Johnny saw what he was doing, he started helping. When he had eighteen images, he called out, "Hey, how do you say his name?"

Various versions of "Khael" rang out through the area. Jack looked up and pronounced it carefully; the first letter sounded almost like a German "ch" and the second sound was almost two.

Andy looked around at everyone, and then he looked at Jack. "Kyle?" he asked.

Jack shrugged; clearly the pronunciation was close enough that he'd respond.

"Now that that's settled," Johnny laughed. "C'mon up here," he said, gesturing.

*

Khael could remember his parents discussing learning new languages, and how some sounds gave new speakers trouble. But every sound in his name? Still, these people were clearly trying, and what they'd come up with wasn't too bad, although he'd have to pay careful attention to hear it.

He walked up to the two men who had been doing something on one of the machines. The one who'd called him, pointed to the monitor. On it was a baby, sitting at a table with a small cake that had a candle. They let babies near candles? Then the man changed the picture; the child at the table was now a toddler and the cake had two candles. Khael nodded and the man changed the picture again. The child was a little boy and the cake had three candles. Khael nodded again, thought and held up one finger and started to count. The man smiled but shook his head.

Somebody yelled at them and the other man looked sheepish. Placing his hand on his chest, he said, "Andy." Pointing to the man beside him, he said, "Johnny."

Khael repeated both names, but clearly wasn't getting the first sound in "Johnny's" name. Andy grinned, took a sheet of paper and drew a shape. Judging from the other images, it was supposed to be a cake. Then, he pointed at Khael, and drew two sticks on the top and handed the pen to Khael.

It took Khael a minute to get what he was being asked, but he grinned when he realized it. "I'm eighteen," he lied, carefully drawing eighteen stick-candles and being very careful not to stop at fifteen. The recruiter had made it clear that they had to be able to claim you were eighteen, even if they didn't really care if it was true or not. If this was all some type of test, he was determined to pass it.

The woman in charge bit her lip, but then sighed and said something to Andy. He spent a few minutes working at his desk, and then asked Khael to come look at the monitor again. This time the image was of a family, father, mother and two boys. Khael felt his throat close up, but swallowed and looked at Andy for instructions. Andy, in turn, looked at the woman in charge. She looked a little teary as well and said something to Andy that had him clearing the image from the screen. She smiled, rubbed his arm a little, and introduced herself as "Gwen". Then she said something else to him as she pulled his arm. He followed along behind her.

It turned out she'd decided to introduce him to everyone. The woman working as gatekeeper, a dark, attractive younger woman was "Lois". The young, very attractive man who seemed to do everything was introduced as "Ianto". The very pregnant small woman was "Tosh", or "Toshiko"; Khael wasn't sure why he got both names. The bad-tempered male medic was "Owen". Gwen was leading him to another part of the building when an alarm went off; Tosh read some things off another monitor and Andy, Johnny, Owen, the man from this morning and another man Khael had only had a glimpse of took off.

They were gone for a long while. Gwen left Khael in the medical area while she went to her office to yell at people over her communicator. After a while, Lois and Ianto left for a while and returned with food. They all ate in a fancy dining room, which was nice. There was plenty of food as well, and no one yelled when he went back for seconds.

Later that afternoon, Tosh yelled out something and everyone began moving quickly. Martha looked almost panicked as she set things up in her area. She was starting to redo what she'd just done when the others from this morning burst into the area. Johnny and the man from this morning were carrying the man Khael had barely seen to the medical area. Owen was talking to Martha quickly, but it sounded like he was reassuring her as well.

Khael looked over the railing into the medical area where they put the man down; it looked like some animal had clawed up the other man's leg. He was cheerful and didn't seem to be in much pain, although he did look happy when Owen gave him an injection. After checking the injury over carefully and talking with Owen for a few minutes, Martha leaned over and began kissing the man. Owen let them continue for a minute, but then said something and started sewing up the leg. Khael wished he could closer; he'd never seen anyone healed that way. Of course, most healers would have objected to the kissing, but Khael thought it a brilliant way to distract someone from that kind of medical treatment.

Martha finally pulled away; they both looked a little dazed. The others were teasing and catcalling, but Khael could tell it was all in good fun. When Owen had finished putting on a dressing and talking for another few minutes, probably instructions not to do it again, the man stood up, hopped up the stairs and wobbled over to Khael. He said something Khael couldn't understand; then, shaking his head, he held out his hand. "Mickey Smith," he said. Khael looked at the hand and put his own in it. Mickey closed his around it, shook it and then released it. He grinned and said something else before he limped over to one of the desks.

Looking around, Khael realized that he knew everyone's name except the man he'd woken up with. He walked over and shyly put his hand on the other's shoulder. The other man looked, shook his head, bowed and said, "Alonso." Khael smiled and repeated the name. Greatly daring, he stroked his hand down Alonso's arm. Alonso grinned and ruffled his hair before going back to what he'd been doing.

The day had been pretty interesting. Khael may not have understood the language, or really known what the others were doing, but that meant he could guess and imagine. He was pretty sure they weren't military, but they weren't exactly civilians. All their monitors seemed to be aimed at local places; he didn't see any pointed off-planet, so he didn't think they were Home Guards. He wasn't sure if they'd be leaving that night, or if he was here until they found out what happened. He knew he ought to be more worried about that, but he couldn't be bothered. He was safe, warm, fed and with people who actually seemed to care about him, a little anyway.

Just as Khael was beginning to doze off, from the inactivity as much as anything else, Alonso shook his elbow a little. They reversed the trip they'd taken in the morning. Khael had expected to share the bed with Alonso, which he would have been fine with, but after Khael was settled in the bed, Alonso went into the other room. When Khael realized he wasn't coming back in, he walked out to find Alonso on the couch in the main room. It really wasn't big enough for two people, but Alonso refused to come when Khael tugged on his hand. Khael finally lay down in the large bed; he didn't think Alonso was trying to be mean, but it felt that way. He curled up into as tight of a ball as he could manage and tried not to cry himself to sleep.

*

"Thanks," Alonso said to Rhiannon the next morning. She'd driven Ianto and Johnny in this morning so she could take Jack to spend the day with her. After glancing at Jack, Alonso said, "Doing anything felt like taking advantage, but I think he was too much on his own yesterday."

Ianto could believe it. Jack, either of them, needed human contact and there hadn't been much of that yesterday. Of course, "Isn't it going to be difficult if he can't talk to you?"

Rhiannon shrugged. "I'm used to spending quality time with people who can't and won't talk to you. We'll be fine. What'd you say the name he used then is?"

"Khael," Ianto said. "I'm not sure how close I'm getting to the pronunciation. Andy didn't even try; he just called him Kyle."

"Well, no wonder he's feeling off, then," Rhiannon said. She smiled at Jack and took his hand. "C'mon, Khael," she said. "I have some stuff to pick up and then it's housecleaning day." She grinned at the other three men. "And today I get help."

Johnny laughed, but Ianto said, "Don't forget; Jack is known here but we don't want people knowing he's-"

"I'm not thick," Rhiannon insisted. She proceeded to shepherd Jack into their car and drove off.

Johnny looked at Ianto. "This had better work out."

Ianto and Alonso exchanged looks and shrugged. The best they could do was hope.

"Meeting right now," Lois said as they walked in. "Owen and Martha found out some things they want to share about Jack."

Ianto went straight to the coffee machine and began making coffee while Owen and Martha argued about how they were setting up their show. Lois brought in pastries and everyone except Owen sat down.

A slide showing a blood sample was displayed. "Right. This is from a sample of Jack's blood I got from him when he first came back this last time. D'you see this?" He used a light pen to circle one of the bodies. "This is an inactive virus; not one we know. As far as we can tell, though, it's always been in Jack's blood."

"Several of Torchwood's doctors over the years have done various types of research on Jack..." Martha added.

"With and without his cooperation and approval," Owen said. He changed slides. Ianto couldn't really see a difference between the two. "This is a sample of his blood from yesterday. Here," he circled a body with the light pen, "is the same virus, but it's active."

"Wait a minute," Johnny said. "He's sick and you didn't say anything? He's with Rhi and the kids!"

"It's not contagious," Martha said. "That much we're sure of but not much more. We spent all day yesterday, when we weren't stitching up Mickey, trying to figure out what it is. No luck." Martha glared at the file in front of her.

"We do know a little about it," Owen said, picking up a file. "It's probably not of Earth origin, it's probably not even of human origin, and it's probably manufactured." He shrugged. "And that's really all we know."

"Other than the amnesia, is Jack showing any other symptoms?" Tosh asked.

"No," Martha answered, "but we're pretty sure the amnesia is, somehow, biological. Except that that's not really how memory works."

"So," Gwen said, "summing up, all we know is Jack has a virus that's made him forget everything since he was eighteen."

Owen thought about it and nodded. "Pretty much, yeah."

Gwen sighed. "OK, keep working on it. In the meantime . . ." She began the normal morning process of giving out assignments for the day. Ianto tuned most of it out, only paying attention to the bits that involved him.

Through the morning and into the afternoon, he continued to mull over the problem. Of all of them, he probably knew Jack best, even this Jack, but he knew almost nothing about his early life. It had been Martha who'd known the name of his original home, and Gwen who knew about the invasion and the loss of his father and brother.

Rhi called Johnny before lunch; Jack had been difficult in the supermarket, which Ianto could have told her. Jack was a menace in supermarkets. However, he had been very helpful in cleaning the house; she said it might even be done to his satisfaction. "It makes you wonder," Ianto said after Johnny repeated that comment, "how much of the rest of his memory is bleeding through."

"Not enough for us to be able to tell," Martha said.

Alonso disagreed. "If anything's bleeding through, it's only a little bit. He's just acting too differently."

After she picked up the kids from school, Rhiannon called back. Johnny was shoving their latest Weevil into a cell, so Ianto took the call. "He and Mica have figured out how he can help her with her homework," she said. "It's darling."

Ianto shook his head at the image of Captain Jack Harkness being called "darling" in that tone of voice. "Has anything else strange been happening?" he asked. "To Jack, I mean."

"No," Rhi answered. "There's a lot he doesn't recognize, and he expects things to act different than they do. I thought you said he was human?"

"He is," Ianto answered. Deciding it was better to anticipate the next question, he continued, "He's from the future."

"Oh," Rhi said. After a minute's silence, in which Ianto could hear a video game and David's shouts in the background, she said, "He's doing really well."

It was late and they were all considering going home when a Rift Alert came through. "One object," Tosh said, looking at the data, "about person-size."

Everyone groaned; they weren't likely to be going home any time soon.

"Tosh," Gwen said, "you direct. Let's see . . ."

"Gwen and Martha stay here; Mickey, Johnny, Andy and I go, with Alonso, Ianto and Lois on back up," Owen interrupted. Gwen was having trouble remembering she was off field work until the baby was born. With her first one, she'd been Torchwood all by herself, and then had been training her new people. Owen wasn't dealing with complications.

Ianto drove Mickey's car up to one block away from where the Rift had opened and parked, thinking that they really needed to get a second, and maybe a third, vehicle. He was planning the purchases when he heard a man's voice through the coms, "I thought you were dead."

"Oh, no," Lois groaned. There weren't many people who knew about Owen's death, but they'd managed to run into one while hunting down an alien.

"Rumours are greatly exaggerated and all that," Owen said. "Who're you?"

"Owen!" Gwen's voice was agitated. "Do not engage him in talk. Cuff Vera and bring him in."

"Vera?" several people asked.

The man laughed. "Tell the lovely Ms. Cooper that we don't need the bondage so quickly."

"Get all of his weapons and don't let him kiss you!" Gwen said.

"No worries, sweetheart," Owen said.

"Yeah, well, he's tricky," Gwen said. "Ianto, follow the SUV, keep them in sight until we get that bastard locked up."

Ianto exchanged a look with Alonso and Lois. "Wow," Lois said, "she really doesn't like this guy."

When they got back to the Hub, the other four were bringing in a human-looking man, forty-something, who was swaggering even though he was cuffed and had three guns on him. When he saw Ianto, he said, "And there's Eye-Candy. Or are you going to say you don't know me either? Am I too early?"

Gwen greeted them at the door, the gun in her hand trained on the stranger. Unusually for her, there was no hesitation, no consideration that there might be a better way to handle things; for a moment, Ianto thought she was going to shoot the man cold. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't pull this trigger," she snarled.

"Not too early," the man said. "Look, I know Jack left; I ran into him a while back, and I thought, well, maybe you could use a Time Agent."

"You know Jack," Ianto heard himself saying.

"We--" the man started to say, only to be interrupted by Gwen.

"Now give us your real reason," she said. The gun remained steady.

The stranger sighed. "It's the truth. And," he sighed, very theatrically, "I kind of wanted to settle down."

"Here?" Gwen asked.

"Jack likes it, no Jack loved it here until things went tits up," the man said. "I'm tired of trying to survive on my own. So, do I have a job?"

Gwen stepped out of the doorway and gestured for him to come inside with it. She showed no signs of putting it down.

Sighing, the man walked into the Hub. "Nice place, all clean and shiny." Then, he saw Tosh. "All right, that's it! What's going on here? I saw her die, I know he did and, hell, Jack was so screwed up over Eye Candy's death that he's running to the end of the universe?"

"And we came from beyond that," Tosh said. "Captain John Hart, almost certainly an alias, former partner of Captain Jack Harkness. Actions nearly killed Gwen Cooper; life saved by Dr. Owen Harper. Actions led to the deaths of Dr. Owen Harper and Toshiko Sato." She looked up at Hart. "You were saying?"

"Beyond . . ." he said softly. "Alternate?" He whistled. "Sweet goddesses, I didn't think that was possible."

Martha clicked a slide and displayed it against a screen. "What is it?"

Hart looked at the screen and said, "It's a picture of, I don't know, blood? Don't claim to be a doctor. And you are?"

"Married," Gwen said. "Let's try this. What do you know that causes amnesia of two thousand years, give or take?"

"Two thousand . . .?" Hart scowled, but then his face cleared. "Can you communicate with him?"

Gwen looked at him, hard. "Do you know what it is?"

"Maybe," Hart said. "Can you?"

Gwen looked at the slide and nodded. "A little bit."

"You can translate B'shani?"

Gwen stared. "You do know what this is."

"Have you gotten an age out of him?"

"Eighteen. What is it?" Gwen's gun was back up.

Hart ignored it and laughed. "That's a lie. He's, well, his memory's reset to when he was fifteen. That's the virus?"

Martha nodded. "Yeah. What do you know about it?"

"Can we discuss this like civilized people?" Hart asked. "Without the guns? I'll tell you what I know, you'll tell me why Jack is back, and we'll discuss job opportunities."

Gwen stood still for a moment, examining him. Then she dropped her gun and nodded. "Keep him cuffed."

Ten minutes later they were sitting in the conference room, Hart cuffed hand and ankles to a chair. He was complaining, but it didn't look to Ianto like he meant it. Once everyone was sitting, Hart said, "It's like this. There's a species, don't remember its name, but they're not descended from predators; they're not naturally aggressive. After being invaded and oppressed by half a dozen nastier species, they learned how to be aggressive. Two systems over, different species, same thing. Mostly, they leave each other alone, but there was this planet they started fighting over. The first gang decides, 'If we remove their hard-learned aggression, we can kick them off and have our little toy to ourselves.' So they developed a virus."

"But it doesn't decrease aggression," Martha said.

"No," Hart agreed. "It removes all memory until before Basic Training. How they managed to get the virus that smart is beyond me, but that's what it does."

"Then how did Jack get it?" Owen asked.

"Had to test it, didn't they?" Hart shook his head. "They thought untrained recruits, who were nearly untrained to begin with, would be safe. Infect the camp, bomb an area far from any people, because they don't like killing, tell the recruits to give up."

Andy said thoughtfully. "They had weapons?"

"You got it," Hart said. "And I said you needed a blond!" When Gwen stared, he shrugged. "But, yeah, a bunch of scared kids, no officers because they'd separated them, I don't remember how, but with some pretty nasty weaponry. Final score: humans: 1 dead, from looking down a gun to see why it didn't fire," everybody winced at that, "a dozen or so injured, everyone else fine. Idiot non-aggressives: something like an eighty per cent casualty rate."

Mickey whistled. "Not bad."

"So, how do you know so much about it?" Gwen asked, scowling. "Where you there?"

"Me?" Hart laughed. "Hell, no; I was at a proper military academy, not a school for cannon fodder."

"Cannon fodder?" Lois asked.

Hart started to say something, and then stopped. "I think I've said enough; I really don't want Jack pissed off at me when his memory comes back."

"How long?" asked Martha.

"Forty-eight to seventy-two hours," Hart said. "I think Jack told me he was in the first group to regain his memories."

"Is there any way to speed it up?" Gwen asked.

Hart shook his head. "'Fraid not."

"Why did they design it to come back that way?" Owen had started taking notes.

"It can only be activated by a couple of substances and I don't know any way of stopping it short of avoiding those substances." Hart shrugged. "None of them are earth origin, but that lovely rift of yours must have spat something out. Now. Job offer?"

Gwen scowled. "Lock him up and I don't care if he's comfortable. We'll see what Jack has to say." She stood and stalked out of the room.

"Damn!" Hart said, watching her leave. "I really do want a job."

*

Jack woke up, feeling strange. He wasn't in bed; he was on somebody's couch. And there was a little person on the floor . . . Oh. Alonso must have decided to let him stay put when he came back to Rhi's and found him sleeping. Then the memory of the last two days came back. Shit. He looked down. "Mica, where's your uncle?"

"In David's room," the little girl answered. "You remember English? Mam said you were going to."

"Good," Jack said absently. Then he realized what she'd said. "How did she know?"

Mica shrugged. "Something about a heart." She looked up at him. "Can you make me breakfast?"

Before Jack could answer, Ianto walked into the room. Wearing only sleep pants. Jack took several deep breaths and reminded himself why starting anything with this man was a bad idea. Really bad idea. Would hurt Ianto. That finally got his brain on track. "Hart?"

"Yeah," Ianto said. "You probably want to talk with Gwen today, let her know how much he was lying, that kind of thing. And, no, Mica, you already had breakfast. Ready in a couple."

Somehow, he really was ready in five minutes, showered, shaved and dressed impeccably. "Johnny left early, Rift Alert, but Gwen told me to bring you in. How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Jack said. "It doesn't do anything but make your memory inaccessible. I have to say, you were all remarkably patient. I'd've been breaking things in your shoes."

Ianto smiled. "You were less trouble that way than you usually are." While Jack glared at him, Ianto asked, "You were fifteen when you joined the army?"

Jack took a quick breath. Sometimes, he really hated Hart. "Yeah. Long story. Shall we go?"

By the end of the day, he'd thanked everyone for taking care of him, endured Alonso signing a regular Torchwood contract and admitted to Gwen that, with the right conditions in place, Hart might actually be useful.

Then he turned in the gun he'd been using. "I'm not leaving just yet," he told Gwen, "but I've been a soldier long enough. It's past time to grow up."

"Maybe," she said, a little timidly, "it's time to be a kid again. What did you want to be when you grew up?"

"I was going to change the world," Jack said, smiling at the memory, "with the power of my brain." When Gwen laughed, he shrugged, "And my charm, of course."

2/19/10


End file.
